


you're cutting the room in half

by QuietLittleVoices



Series: The Other Side [7]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The X Files, Angst, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 11:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/QuietLittleVoices
Summary: The thing that no one said about tragedy was that eventually you had to go to sleep.Sammy woke up and found Jack missing and then he stayed up for forty eight hours. He didn’t go to work. He called the police, who got the FBI involved when Sammy reported their job. He called hospitals and police stations across the state and then the neighbouring ones and then when he felt he was out of options, he stood at the top of the hallway in his and Jack’s apartment and stared down their partially closed bedroom door.He slept on the couch and would continue to for over six months.





	you're cutting the room in half

**Author's Note:**

> You... really won't understand this if you haven't read nearly every other fic in this series. It's the only one that's very locked like that, even though it's a prequel. 
> 
> I hope you like it, though, please comment if you do!

The thing that no one said about tragedy was that eventually you had to go to sleep. 

Sammy woke up and found Jack missing and then he stayed up for forty eight hours. He didn’t go to work. He called the police, who got the FBI involved when Sammy reported their job. He called hospitals and police stations across the state and then the neighbouring ones and then when he felt he was out of options, he stood at the top of the hallway in his and Jack’s apartment and stared down their partially closed bedroom door. 

He slept on the couch and would continue to for over six months.

A week after Jack disappeared, Sammy went in to work. He went straight to the office, ignoring the people on the way who asked  _ Where’s Jack? _ and  _ Where have you been? _

Reagan came down to the office personally, not bothering to knock before she walked in and saw Sammy sitting in Jack’s desk chair, almost frozen in place.

“You don’t have to come back yet,” she told him.

Sammy looked down at the desk, at the unorganized piles of filing boxes and open cabinets overflowing with papers. “What else would I be doing?” he asked.

Reagan walked closer and sat down across from him, taking in the sight of the bags under his eyes and the tightness in his shoulders. His suit was rumpled and his long hair was hastily tied back but obviously not taken care of in any way. “Sleeping,” she suggested.

If it was possible with how downtrodden he already looked, Sammy’s face fell even more. “I can’t,” he admitted. “It’s like -” he sighed and put one of his hands on the desk, fist clenched. “It’s like, I’ll be trying, and then right before I fall asleep I can hear him. Talking, sometimes, but usually just moving around. And I know it isn’t real, it’s that - that place between being awake and asleep. It’s what I would be dreaming about, or something. It wakes me up and then I have to walk around looking for him, like he’s gonna be hiding in the fucking cabinets.” He took a deep, ragged breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a second before looking up at Reagan.

She reached over and covered his fist with her hand. “Do you want to stay somewhere else?” she asked softly. “We can provide a hotel, or you can stay with me.”

Sammy shook his head. “The only things I have left of Jack are in that apartment and this office. I can’t just… abandon it.”

“It’s not abandoning, it’s taking care of yourself,” Reagan said. “You can’t do anything like this.”

Sammy pulled his hand back, dropping it back to his lap under the desk. “Thank you, Reagan,” he muttered. “I can’t be there all day staring at the wall, though, so here I am. Even if it’s just to stare at this wall.” He gestured unenthusiastically behind her.

Reagan nodded. “Okay, if that’s what you want.” She stood up. “Call me if you need anything at all, even just to talk,” she offered. “I’m your friend, and I care about you. Jack, too. I want to help as much as I can.” Reagan walked away but paused in the doorway just before leaving. “You can go home whenever you need. I’ll call you if there’s a case to look into.”

She left and Sammy took a deep breath, leaning back into the chair. He looked around the room and it was full of Jack - newspaper clippings on the walls, photos and posters, handwritten notes pinned or taped, a few strands of string to match things together. Jack had set it all up, it all made sense to him - a system that Sammy had never fully understood. 

 

The apartment nearly echoed with its emptiness. It wasn’t very big, but it was bigger than the first one they’d lived in together. Too big for one person. 

Sammy knew that he’d have to go into the bedroom. His clothes were there, for one thing, and if he kept going back to work he needed to be clean. But he couldn’t make himself get farther down the hallway than the bathroom. The door was half open and he could see his own nightstand, cluttered like it always was, and a strip of floor. He took a step forward, slow like he was moving underwater, and then another. He got halfway there, stopping in front of Jack’s closed office door. Hesitantly, Sammy reached forwards and tried the doorknob. He shouldn’t have been surprised to find it unlocked, swinging open easily under the small push, because it only locked from the inside. Maybe he’d been hoping it was.

Behind the door, the office was as chaotic as it always had been. But it was different - the desk had all the usual trappings, stacks of open books, pens and pencils, notebooks, an open map - but the rest of the room had changed.

The bookshelves were normally full to bursting with books on various arcana and paranormal things, from biographies to biology textbooks - anything that Jack thought might help him figure something out - but now it was half empty, with a few boxes full of books arranged at the base. Instead of dark covers and thick volumes, the books on the shelf were thin and colourful. Dr. Seuss and Robert Scarry and other authors Sammy didn’t recognize were propped up on the shelves - only a few, not enough to crowd it, but enough. There was a blue bin with various coloured geometric shapes on it tucked into the shelf and Sammy almost didn’t want to look into it. He couldn’t resist the temptation as he approached, though, and found a few plastic toys and a plush fox. Slowly, he reached into the box and picked up the fox, holding it to his chest.

He pushed the box back in and turned around, noting the other changes. The normal papers that covered the walls had been taken down and replaced with two photos of forest scenes. Propped against the wall was a cardboard box with a small photo of a crib in black and white.

They’d talked about it. There had been a plan - they would get married, probably in the spring, and then start the process of adopting. Jack had been nearing forty and Sammy wasn’t much younger, so they hadn’t wanted to wait. Sammy had thought they’d probably buy a house or a new apartment somewhere in there, but Jack was apparently willing and ready to give up his space for their family.

Sammy was spared from diving further into that train of thought when the house phone rang. He sat the little fox up on the shelf and walked back into the living room.

“Hello?”

“I think I have a case for you,” Reagan said, customarily skipping a greeting. “Come by my office tomorrow.”

 

The case itself appeared easy - cut and dry in a way most of the cases Sammy had worked with Jack were not. But without Jack, ever the believer, it was nearly impossible. 

Sammy kept turning, starting to speak - in front of strangers and alone in the motel room. It was a single room, when he and Jack had always gotten doubles to keep up appearances despite the fact that one bed was left untouched, and Sammy wished that that made it easier to separate  _ now _ from  _ then _ . It didn’t. Sammy wasn’t sure anything would.

The resolution was the same as it always was - some people found comfort in a natural solution and others prefered the alternatives. Sammy passed it over to the local authorities as soon as he could and was home by the end of the week. Everything had taken longer than it should have.

Sammy found himself again at the edge of the hallway in the apartment. The closed bathroom door, the closed half-office-half-nursery, the partially ajar bedroom. He walked up to it and place his hand flat against the door, taking a deep breath before pushing it all the way open.


End file.
